Seasonal – Hot Weather / Humidity

03 March 2011 swimart

Hot Weather, Cool Pools

Keep your pool in tip top condition

With Australia still experiencing bursts of hot weather, there’s nothing more refreshing than cooling down in your pool. But all this humidity means that a little extra TLC is needed to keep your pool in top condition.

The dreaded algae

The hotter the weather gets and the more the pool is used, the more chlorine is required to keep itsanitised. Algal blooms in the heat, and chlorine is the best defense, so make sure your pool is protected. With the ongoing hot weather, pools are not cooling down overnight, so the chlorine demand remains high. If you have a salt pool, the ‘super chlorinate’ button on your salt chlorinator will fix the problem.

Algae also love phosphates and feed on them, so you need to make sure levels of phosphates in the water aren’t too high. Phosphates are introduced to the pool primarily via bird and bat droppings. Rain water collected from the roof of your house and also swimming costumes washed in detergent containing phosphates are other potential sources.

Chlorine alone can’t eliminate phosphates alone so you need a chemical called Phosphate Starver which will eradicate the problem so the chlorine can work on killing the algae.

Watch your pH!

Another thing to watch out for is your pool’s pH. If pH levels are incorrect, this can affect the efficiency of the chlorine in the pool.

If your pool’s pH is too high, you can get scaling on the surface of the water and your salt chlorinator. All you need to do is add acid to the water. If too low, the water will start to hurt eyes and skin and make you feel itchy. It can also etch away the surface of the pool. To fix this issue, just add ‘buffer’ or alkali.

If in doubt, the safest approach is to take a pool water sample from below elbow depth to your local Swimart store to check for balance and sanitisation.